Well, the 2010 Super 14 has come and gone for our beloved Sharks and we decided it was time to hold our very own awards ceremony. Without further ado, here are the official Sharksworld 2010 Super 14 awards… all of which need to be taken with a major pinch of salt, it has to be said!

The “gone in 60 seconds” award: Gerhard Mostert wins this one hands down. Rumour has it if you have a recording of the Chiefs game and pause it on exactly 1 minute and 32 seconds of elapsed game time, you can actually see him wearing a Sharks jersey, on the field of play!

The “JP Pietersen” award: This one is awarded to the player who scores as many tries in the season as JP did back in 2007. Unfortunately, JP himself was only 10 tries short of equalling his own record, but we have the privilege of awarding this one to now fewer than four players, who between them managed to hit the magic number of 12 tries. Well done to Ruan Pienaar, Odwa Ndungane, Ryan Kankowski and Jaques Botes, who scored 3 times each. Kinda tells you something, doesn’t it?

The “three for the price of one” award: The only way John Smit could possibly contribute more to the Sharks team would be if he could play in all three front-row positions at the same time. We believe he is currently working on this with a view to the 2011 season.

The “one for the price of three” award: We’ll give this one to Rudolf Straueli and Willem Alberts to share. Let’s just say that the Commercial Director’s off-season shopping spree down in Jozi wasn’t completely successful – unless you consider pissing Manie Reynecke off as sufficient reward in its own right – but despite the failure of Gerhard Mostert and Louis Ludik to make their presence felt, Big Vic Alberts was certainly a revelation and worth every cent of his transfer fee. Or would have been, if Manie hadn’t been playing golf the day they did “Introduction to Contract Law” down at Unisa SBL.

The “zero for the price of three” award: To Chris Boyd, Hugh Reece-Edwards and Grant Bashford, for showing us it doesn’t really matter how many backline coaches you have if you can’t score any tries. The “zero” here represents the total number of midfield line-breaks made by the Sharks centres in 2010.

The “receiver of revenue” award: They say the only two certain things in life are death and taxes. I’ll add a third. It doesn’t matter who starts out playing there, you can rest assured that by the end of the season, Andries Strauss will somehow have found his way back into the Sharks midfield.

The “rugby league” award: This one goes to our favourite pensioner, Oom Stefan Terblanche, for playing exactly the same game regardless of which number he happens to have on his back.

The “Cinderella” award: It might have taken him a long time to get there, but we’re pretty glad Lwazi Mvovo finally made it to the ball. When we saw him hunt down the great Brian O’Driscoll last year, we knew this kid had lots of heart and plenty of gas and it’s been a real pleasure watching him bring a new enthusiasm to the Sharks backs play over the last few weeks.

The “you shall not pass” award: This one goes to none other than our favourite brick wall, Jean Deysel, for the tackle of the season, when he smashed Schalk Burger so hard I could hear the impact from my living room in Kent. Oom Stef gets an honourable mention for knocking the stuffing out of the “World’s Best 13″, Jaque Fourie, in the same game. Pity it took so much out of the old-timer that he went on to miss 6 tackles the following week, though…

The “if you’re good enough, you’re old enough” award: Oh come on…. you know who gets this one! Pat Lambie is pure class and if we could only find a way to reliably clone him, the Sharks’ backline woes would be a thing of the past. Looking forward to seeing much more of this young man over the next decade, because watching him play is a real treat.

The “if I were him, I’d be seriously hacked off” award: Can anyone explain exactly why Monty Dumond wasn’t released to the Cheetahs, again? It was because we needed him to play Vodacom Cup, right?

The “thanks for nothing” award: Steve Meyer. Golden opportunities don’t come around too often and when you’re offered one on a plate, you take it. You don’t resign on the eve of the first game of the season, muttering some nonsense about a knee injury, only to turn around five minutes later blaming it all on your pushy girlfriend and beg for another chance. Grow a pair, Steve – and well done to the Sharks senior players for sending this wannabe packing.

The “caveat emptor” award: This one goes to Ulster Rugby Club, for seeing their proud new signing, Johann Muller, break his arm (again) two weeks ago. The Northern Irishmen clearly have a liking for Sharks lads – in addition to BJ Botha and now Muller, they were also linked quite strongly to both Ruan Pienaar and Rory Kockott during the season. Maybe we should also give them the “keep your hands of our stuff” award. Honourable mention here also goes to Saracens, for picking up Deon Carstens. The likeable prop has certainly spent more time on the physio table than he has on the rugby field over the past few seasons.

Finally, just because we can’t leave him out, we have the pleasure of awarding the “consistency” award to none other than John Plumtree. Once again, Plum showed us his unfailing ability to lead the Sharks to a final log position that is exactly three places below the one they occupied the year before!

Congrats to all the winners and again, don’t take this too seriously. I’m sure when the Sharks win the Currie Cup we’ll have some far nicer prizes to hand out…

49 Comments

And the “Should have been Could have been” award is a team award… again!

Comment 1, posted at 17.05.10 08:46:03 by Farlington

I just hope that we can continue our winning ways come the Currie Cup. But to be honest I did not expect our boys to do well in this years S14… that is if you consider all the “Drama” before the tournament even started.

Well done for a pretty good second half of the comp, even if it is still not 100%.

Comment 2, posted at 17.05.10 08:53:05 by Farlington

Well now what can i say great awards and congrats on all the winners the awards went quite well with the different departments

And we are going to take the CC and put it back where it belongs in SHARKS TANK

Comment 3, posted at 17.05.10 09:10:53 by Chaz

i have some more categories to add :

the bumerang award – goes to Adi for his kick in the dying momemnts of Highlanders game

Comment 4, posted at 17.05.10 09:26:20 by rekinek

How about the Anti Depression Award to my doctor who keeps me alive through all the disappointments . . .

@Uli (Comment 31) : must say Old Jame Small is a lengend was a great player in his days just like reneik said GOOD OLD DAYS

Comment 32, posted at 18.05.10 10:42:27 by Chaz

another interesting stat is that André’ Joubert only managed a total of 17 tries in total since 1996-1999 so he only managed to score another 5 tries from 1997 – 1999 in super rugby.

Comment 33, posted at 18.05.10 10:43:31 by Uli

@ Chaz – Yes he was and the combination between him and Juba was awesome, and don’t forget old Pretty Cabousy our all time leading try scorer, the three of them scored plenty of tries together. That was probably the best back three the Sharks ever had together.

Think about this in the 1996 season the Sharks scored 56 tries in 13 games…. lol ok well lets not get depressed now…

Comment 37, posted at 18.05.10 10:52:05 by Uli

@Uli (Comment 34) : oh my going down old memory lane old Cabous gee what a player and that long hair of his oh my i heard he is a big boss in the Mr Price stores maybe me can get me white rebelik jersey from him

@Pokkel (Comment 47) :
Yes I remember that day so clearly, It was a cloudy day in 1993, I was sitting in the grand stand on Kings park, and it happened a few meters from me. TVL had a great team that year. The Natal side also had an awesome team. James Small was on the bench as Tony was keeping him out the team at that stage. Then Uli klapped Tony Watson when going up to catch the ball in the air. Crushing all his cheek bones. It was terrible to witness something like that.
The Sharks was still in the lead, I think that broke the whole spirit of the team that day, as TVL then went on to win that day. If I remember correctly it was the same day that Rudi Vissagie ran like Lomu over the TVL back line to go score underneath the poles. Hennie Le Roux did a Mike Catt that day!!! Oh that was great to see.

Maybe I should rephrase, I think Mike Catt actually did a Hennie Le Roux in the World cup…lol

Comment 48, posted at 18.05.10 12:57:42 by Uli

@Uli (Comment 48) : I suppose I could add ‘the good old days of Tvl rugby’ as well….I just hope the Sharks can come back strong from a dissapointing S14